Nevada County picayune., 1887-01-05
Opinion on Marriage.

St. Paul. and the same opinion has been expressed much in the same words by innumerable authors from Seneca downward. It is curious, however, to note how writers have differed in the testimony they have borne to this, the most sacred of human relationship. "A man finds himself z years older the day after his marriage" says Bacon; and, ac. cording to lady writer, marriage is "the metempsychosis of women, 1t turns them into different crea. lures from what they were before. y The reading that comes between the lines here is capable of more than one interpretation. and it must be left to tue initiated to take a view which most answers to their own circumstances. There are no two meanings, however, in the Johnosnian declaration that mari
 age is the best state for man in gen eral, and every man is worse man in proportion as he is unfit for the married state." Nor, although he looks at the matter in two aspects, is there any ambiguity in Daniel Webster's opinion that in marriage there is no purgatory-it To- cally contains heaven or hell; there is no third place in it. Nevertheless the relationship is good for the chief uph0lders of the doctrine of a third state, tor we have distinguish ed wearer of the ring of the Fisher man lPius IT. preaching that mar riage is better for the clergy than a single life" And even Voltaire, with all his doubts and specnla. tions, has this to say with regard to the sacred tie: "The more mar ried men you have the fewer crimes there will be-" inasmuch as marriage renders man more vir- tuOus and more wise." Colton put in that marriage is feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner" Melancthon agrees with Voltaire ou the question, his opinion being "few unmarried peO. pie are effected as they ought to be toward the public good and per ceive what are really the most i'm portant objectsin life" Montague is inclined to be irOnical on the subject, saying that "the land of marriage has this peculiarity, that strangers are desirous of inhabit. ing 1t, while it's natural inhabitants would willingly be banished thence" If there is irony also in Sydney Smiths observation on the subject, it is softened with de- lightful touch of humor. We have the genial divine comparing mar.
 ried couples to a pair of shears, 'so joined that they cannot be separa, ted; often moving in opposite di- rections yet always punishing any one who comes between them.' We have one noted author inti- mating that even at the worst there is certain measure of benefit in marriage. We are not very much to blame for our bad marriages" :" says Emerson; i've live amid hal.
 lucinations, and this especial trap is laid to trip our feet with, and all are ripped up first or last, but the mighty mother who had been so sly with us, and she felt she owed us some indemnity; insinuates into the Pandora box of marriage some deep and serious benefits and some great joys" There are the same differences m the virdlct on the marriage state in the poetic as in the prose references to it. The testimony on both aspects of mar riage is. in fact. volunainous, and it deals with what bears chiefly on human joy or sorrow. But there is no question as to which way .he balance turns. St. Paul Globe.